 | | | Treating a tape drive as a "regular " drive? | Treating a tape drive as a "regular " drive? 2003-10-14 - By Keith Mastin
Back
Hi Ken,
> Is there a way to treat a tape drive (using ftape or ztape) as a regular
> drive? I've tried to mount it but get the error "not a block device".
It's a 'linear' device, which means it has to search back and forth
through the tape for the information stored on it, and would make for a
horrifically temper-thrashing excercise in patience if you try to use it
as a regular drive that I know I wouldn't be up to.
> I normally use tar to do this, but there are times I'd prefer to simply
> copy a few files to the tape.
I hope you mean to the right place on the tape instead of over something
even more important. :) Tapes are very slow IO devices that are great for
huge removable storage mediums but little else.
--
Keith Mastin
BeechTree Information Technology Services Inc.
Toronto, Canada
(416)429 9304
|
|
|